Ant gets non-binary species name to honour Warhol star

摘要

A NEWLY discovered species of ant from Ecuador has been named with the suffix "-they", rather than a traditional gendered Latin suffix, to celebrate gender diversity. The ant was discovered in 2018 by Philipp Hoenle, who is at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. He sent a photograph to taxonomic expert Douglas Booher at Yale University, who recognised it as a new species in the genus Strumigenys. Traditionally, when naming a species after a person, one of two distinct genders are reflected by using the suffixes "-ae" for women and "-i" for men. Instead, Booher suggested using the gender non-binary identifier "they", naming the ant Strumigenys ayersthey after artist and human rights activist Jeremy Ayers.